Ask anyone whether she endorses the policy that everyone should be afforded an equal opportunity for advantaged social positions, such as jobs and educational slots, and she will respond with a resounding "Yes". But asked what, exactly, equal opportunity amounts to and which principles might best be employed to defend and express that ideal, our responder may have no immediate answer. To motivate just a few of the complexities involved in an adequate interpretation of equal opportunity, let alone its realization, imagine the following: You are a conductor of a regional orchestra who wishes to fill a vacancy in the first violin chair. This is a position which is rewarded in a number of ways including a modest salary, prestige, future opportunities opened by the position, not to mention the enjoyment and edification that comes with playing music. But how is the position to be filled such that everyone can be said to have an equal opportunity for it? As Mason argues, any answer we give to the question will inevitably be embedded within a wider theory of justice. So, if you simply decide to give this position to, say, your daughter--others will rightly feel a sense of moral outrage.

We might think that competition for the position is open if and only if no one is prevented from entering the competition for the chair, the job is widely advertised, and the selection criteria are designed to select only the best qualified candidate. This set of requirements Mason deems "the simple view", and the book proceeds to revise, elaborate, supplement, and defend this position. Indeed, the notions that the simple view comprises, including what counts as an "opportunity" and as a "qualification" are, well, far from simple. Does someone who comes from an economically depressed area, with no funding for music education, ever have the opportunity for such a position? Is a person qualified for our prestigious first chair if her religion demands that she wear a burka that might distract a typically parochial audience from a performance? These questions begin to reveal the thorny thicket of issues through which Mason attempts to cut a clear view.

One may object to giving the cherished position to your daughter because she does not deserve it, and Mason is quick to note that our intuitions about desert hover very close to our thinking about what it means to level the playing field. But, as we are sometimes all-too-aware, judgments about desert are sensitive to effort making, not just achievement. Imagine that one of the candidates spent several years in dedicated study, making familial and financial sacrifices in the process, to become a merely mediocre violinist. Now imagine another candidate who very easily mastered the instrument and can play the musical canon with brilliance--though the instrument takes little priority in her life's passions. Which candidate deserves the position? At the very least, appointment of people to positions on the basis of qualifications is not a good way of giving them what they deserve.

Mason argues that intuitions about desert and about hiring the best qualified candidate can be preserved best by an account which places not desert, but respect for persons, at its center. Mason expands this vision of equality of opportunity by arguing that instead of neutralizing the effects of differences in people's circumstances and endowments on their access to advantaged social positions, justice only demands that we mitigate such differences. The "mitigation approach" is itself articulated and defended in terms of further principles. These principles include a "basic skills principle", which is itself grounded in terms of a "sufficiency principle" and an "educational access principle", which is grounded in a "quasi-egalitarian principle", and yet others.

For Mason, a benefit of this approach is that it would allow tolerable (perhaps even desirable) differences to emerge from the different choices that people actually make. Mason calls this new position, derived from thinking seriously about the simple view, a "responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism". His account gives weight to the choices of individuals, but not complete weight when that weight is overly burdensome. In the end, Mason plausibly argues that it is by giving advantaged positions to those most qualified, and by selecting them based on relevant criteria, that we best respect the agency of both the person who earned the position and those who did not.

In reading the book, I often got the feeling of a beleaguered sub-prime mortgage borrower: I felt lost in principle. Indeed, the quick (too-quick) gloss I have given Mason's argument reveals that the position he is clearing in the thicket is a sophisticated one, one that asks the reader mentally to juggle many competing principles, views, and approaches. Sometimes I felt that my own juggling efforts would have been made a bit more bearable with more examples. Indeed, Mason is at his best when he discusses particular, concrete contexts. It is perhaps because of the multitude of principles and approaches that I sometimes got the feeling that Mason was trying to eat his cake and have it too--such that any of the threads of principles woven for the cloth of his position could independently unravel and not damage the sensibility of the overall position. Should there be a challenge, there always seems to be a principle waiting to meet it.

Of course it's not much of a criticism to say of a view that it's complicated. I suppose, given the crooked timber from which humanity is hewn, I shouldn't be surprised that a just structure will need to be fashioned by many tools. Mason, for his part, acknowledges the complexity of the position:

"It might be thought that the complexity of the mitigation approach--its reliance on a plurality of principles that work together but which may nevertheless come into conflict with one another--counts against that approach and provides at least one reason in favor of the neutralization approach, and indeed in favor of a version of it which holds that justice requires people to bear the full costs of their choices. But I do not think that considerations of complexity or simplicity have any bearing on the assessment of the mitigation approach, nor indeed the assessment of the neutralization approach, at the level of fundamental principle. At this level, simplicity is a virtue of a theory only if that theory is true ..." (220).

Fair enough.

This is a book about egalitarianism, but it's not for everyone. Those readers wanting a general account of equal opportunity written for a broad audience best look elsewhere. Those deciding to tackle the text who already possess a familiarity with the theoretical issues and debates connected to the "equal opportunity" ideal, however, will find here a nuanced position that is defended and explored with real scholarly acumen. Indeed, those lucky enough to have access to the appropriate education will appreciate its careful, sustained argument, and they will be justly rewarded for their choice.

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